Sanya Malhotra on not making it on Dance India Dance: Was rejected because my backstory wasn't strong enough

Sanya Malhotra, who was last seen in Badhaai Ho and Pataakha, opened up about her journey to becoming an actress. She shared that she always had passion for dancing but her "real dream" was to pursue acting. Malhotra shared that in order to achieve her goal, she decided to audition for the reality show Dance India Dance. "I never revealed this to anyone back home in Delhi. I thought I would be laughed at or ridiculed. After all, it’s a big dream. But I thought maybe, just maybe I could get to acting through dancing! So I applied to the Dance India Dance reality show and got to the top 100. But before I could move beyond that stage, I got rejected because my backstory wasn’t strong enough," Sanya told photo blog Humans of Bombay.Despite the rejection, she decided to stay in Mumbai to try her luck in films, which she said was "demotivating". Sanya said that she "learnt the ropes of the business" and built her self-esteem back. Sanya also shared that she had auditioned for Dangal with thirty other aspiring actresses, but she knew she would get selected.Sanya's upcoming release is Photograph, written and directed by The Lunchbox helmer Ritesh Batra. The film, also starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2019 and its European premiere at Berlin International Film Festival. She will also be seen with Aditya Roy Kapur in Anurag Basu's untitled film.